


with all i do (and do not say)

by stag_von_simp



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Anxiety, Arranged Marriage AU??, Black Eagles Bonding Time, Canon Law Is a Social Construct, Contradicts Canon, Don't Yell At Me About Canon Law, Dorothea is a Good Friend, F/M, Ferdie and Dorothea are best friends, Ferdinand blowing things out of proportion, Ferdinand has a crush on Hubert, Fluff, Gen, Hubert does not reciprocate, I Took Creative Liberties, I know in canon Edelgard wouldn't ever go through with an arranged marriage, I'm pretty sure some men did that back in the day for special occasions, Let Ferdinand Wear Makeup to the wedding!!, M/M, Oneshot, Oops, Then It's a Fodlan Thing!!, also!!, and if not, but - Freeform, let's see..., too many tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:43:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21540817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stag_von_simp/pseuds/stag_von_simp
Summary: Ferdinand realizes too late how much he doesn't want to marry Edelgard.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir & Dorothea Arnault, Ferdinand von Aegir & Edelgard von Hresvelg, Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra (sort of implied)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	with all i do (and do not say)

**Author's Note:**

> ***Written in an AU where Ferdinand's betrothed was meant to be Edelgard instead of Bernadetta, and where they actually go through with the arranged marriage***
> 
> (and I know a lot of this isn't logical, but I just kind of had fun with it)
> 
> Hope you guys like it!!

Ferdinand has never wanted less to see himself in the mirror. Nonetheless, he lances his eyes to his reflection, hammers his gaze to that of the uncertain ginger he sees in the glass and lets it hang there, limp and unsatisfied with the man he’s glaring at.

He’s done up, hair slung over his shoulder in a tight coil, laced with flowers, the color of light shattered across ice. Faded flowers, wrung of life to match the eyes of the woman he’s to be marrying in--

“Twenty-two minutes, Ferdie,” Dorothea reports. “Sit down, and, for the love of Sothis, stop looking at yourself like that. You act like you’re some  _ otherworldly  _ beauty. You don’t look  _ that _ great. Not yet, anyway. Now sit down,” she orders, and Ferdinand clatters back into the chair before the mirror obediently.

Dorothea swishes out in front of him, skirt churning around her like a storm. It’s silk, seamless fabric soothed into simplicity, not a frill or ruffle in sight. Edelgard didn’t want embellishment on anyone’s outfits today, least of all her own.

Ferdinand, however, is polished until the light of the moon paints his outfit. Dorothea contributes to it further, smearing  _ something _ across his face. Cosmetics. She really is getting carried away, but Ferdinand only nestles back into his chair and lets her cast her spells across his face with that brush. Perhaps she can drape something beautiful over the hideous doubt scribbled in every plane of his face.

He aims another peek at the mirror, and sees his lips are leached of color. It’s not the fault of Dorothea’s cosmetics, either; it’s because his teeth are grinding, eyebrows creasing, jaw creaking on its hinges as he slams it shut again and again, nibbling his bottom lip until blood frays onto his tongue with a tang not unlike medicine, stinging his tongue and rattling him awake. 

Because this all feels like a dream. A terrible, terrible dream on a shredded canvas, etched with a menacing hand.

_ It isn’t fair. _

“Come on, Ferdie. When you purse your lips like that I can’t paint them. Do stop--lest you want to look more like a clown than usual,” Dorothea taunts. Ferdinand pries his lips apart, and Dorothea swipes something cool across them. When he finally manages to snap his attention from the mirror--and it skitters foolishly to Dorothea herself--he notices the concern withered across her face like roots torn from their safe, underground sanctuary. “Hey, why the long face? You’re getting married, Ferdie. You’re usually so... _ chirpy _ . I expected you to be bouncing off the walls for today’s occasion. But...here we are. Are you ill? I can get Lin if you are. The ceremony can still go on! Just say the word.”

Sparklers of excitement blare in Dorothea’s eyes. She seems excited for the ceremony herself. A scarce, sincere smile squirms at the corners of her mouth like a twitch. Ever since the war, she’d been smiling less and less. And here she is, nearly giddy.

And yet he’s still considering snipping right through her joy with the truth.

_ He can’t. _

_ It isn’t fair. _

“I am certainly not ill,” he assures her. “I suppose I am just unaccustomed to all this pageantry.” He plants a laugh in his throat, pleads for it to blossom into something passable for genuine, but what he coughs out a second later is pathetic, like the weak toll of tin chattering beneath a mallet. “I will make do, never fear. How could I not?”

Then he accidentally stumbles, grimacing, driving his lips together and retreating further back into his chair. Dorothea hums with an accusation but simply stirs a brush through a pit of white powder--another cosmetic, another sheet to weld into the mask, another shell to duck into and another prayer to hide the reservations still throbbing in his chest--and returns to her work.

_ It isn’t fair. _

“How long until the ceremony now?” he wonders aloud. Dorothea’s eyes dribble back to the clock. She gives him eighteen minutes to gather his bearings, to sew and seam the threads in his heart until no doubt remains. He can barely hear her over the dread squabbling in his stomach, over the screaming match crashing through his head in roaring waves.

_ It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair,  _ each voice choruses. They’re only in harmony then. Every other chord they shovel up screeches like a headache. And Ferdinand can agree with them all more than he’d like to, and the fact that he does makes his vision swarm with heat and something else.

He just wishes he would stop caring so much. His father didn’t marry for joy. His father never fell in love, and if he did, he sealed it away, tucked it behind his cloaks and his masks. And his father was a successful man.

Ferdinand will be a successful man, with Edelgard’s name and his stamped together on the top of every document that sifts into the kingdom’s new cabinets and cabinets of law.

_ But that doesn’t make it fair. _

***

Seven minutes until the ceremony. The only sound that exists in Ferdinand’s puddle of existence is the merciless snare of his heart in his ears. His blood sizzles audibly, and his chest is prickled with pain. He feels as though he’s mowing through a swamp, and each step tries to glue his shoes to the floor. Each step claws at his legs, trying to yank him under the waters of his own boiling dread. 

His skin would smolder in those depths. The water threatens to chew him free from his cocoon in every respect. All this dread makes it terribly difficult to keep the insecurity brewing in his stomach from streaming across his face.

Ferdinand hoops his lips and whistles out a sigh as he hunkers from the salon that’d been reserved for him. The halls of the castle squint down at him like imposing guards, as if assessing him for any suspicion that dares ripple across his surface.

It all hulks around him, and his head twirls in repetition of the same violent waltz. His breath punches from his throat in tatters. His heart bangs a rhythm against his ribcage that could very well leave it flecked across with bruises:  _ it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair, it isn’t.  _

It isn’t fair that he couldn’t dunk his head into this shouting sea of his inhibition and  _ force  _ himself to fall in love with her. It isn’t fair that he can’t code his heart himself. It isn’t fair that he wants to ruin this moment for Edelgard, for Dorothea, for his damned last name, for his destiny, for his  _ father  _ who only ever asked this of him. It isn’t fair that he’s so selfish that he’s very tempted not to marry Edelgard just because he isn’t necessarily in love with her. It isn’t fair that love exists in a world that dangles it out of the span of his arms and his future. It isn’t fair that there are commoners, crouched in their rickety village homes, able to pepper kisses across the faces of whoever they wish. It isn’t fair that he’s greedy enough to envy their aimless lives.

Their aimless,  _ joyous _ lives. Their pointless, happy existence. Their days on this planet, without direction save for that of their wishes. 

It’s too much; it’s like the walls are bursting into pieces, like the castle is being peeled apart from the inside out and every bit of raining plaster pelts his shoulders at once. His vision paddles worthlessly, clawing for clarity in the world of his disoriented mind.

He begins walking, but now his heart commands the dance. And all his spluttering heart can manage--the only directions fed to his famished head, stewing in itself--is  _ you can’t marry her.  _

And it isn’t fair, because when he slumps back into his skin, he feels himself teetering in the doorway to Edelgard’s own salon. The goddess be thanked, she’s fully dressed--in a spill of silk and lace, practically bobbing in the dress; if Dorothea’s dress was a storm, then Edelgard swirls among a hurricane. And she’d tried to keep it simple.

He can imagine her, mumbling objections as the tailors pinned the gown to the rails of her shoulders--imagine Bernadetta, stitching away at the dress like she’d promised to, creating the beautiful, disastrous masterpiece--and then his eyes topple to where Hubert looms in the room, staked near the corner as if wilting away from the mirror, fingers bundled in front of him.

Ferdinand’s blood smacks into his cheeks. There’s sweat threaded through his hair, as ornate as the flowers there that match her eyes so well it’s painful.

There’s sweat braced around his hairline, a sagging diadem, a clammy crown he finds himself not wanting as his eyes tumble down Hubert’s form. They bounce back up, and dread scrunches his stomach when he sees the scowl that pens across Hubert’s face in a flourish of dark ink and annoyance.

Edelgard tugs her eyes from the mirror, hooking their intensity on Ferdinand instead. It’s like he’s being stabbed repeatedly at the tip of the sharpest dagger he’s ever seen. 

He finds himself wheezing just to breathe--gasp, heave,  _ gasp, heave, stop it, it isn’t fair, what are you doing, stop looking at Hubert, for crying out loud _ \--but he doesn’t feel the air in his chest. It’s like he’s been drained of everything but the doubt and the dread and the grill of Hubert’s eyes on him, because, even if contempt poisons his stare, at least Hubert is  _ looking _ at him.

He wrestles for breath. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

“What do you need, Ferdinand?” Edelgard asks him. “You’re not supposed to see me until after the ceremony begins. But, I mean, I guess our reign will be all about ending traditions like that. So it really doesn’t matter. Just tell me why you’re here right now.”

“Yes,” jeers Hubert. “You’re meant to be leaving her alone. Giving her a few minutes free from you and your  _ insufferable  _ mouth before she has to kiss it and be with you forever.”

“Hubert, enough,” Edelgard hisses.

Ferdinand snatches another swig of oxygen from the air, stuffs it into the hollow cavity of his chest. He feels like it’s the abyss--like it’s hollow and he’s falling into it.

Like he’s  _ so close  _ to slapping the ground--like he’s going to hit it and blow apart--like he’s--

Dorothea surges into the room. “I am  _ so sorry _ , Edie,” she says. “I left the room for a second so I could finish primping for the ceremony, and when I returned, he was gone. Dammit, Ferdie. I can’t trust you alone for even a second. Hey--you don’t look great. What’s wrong?”

Her observation pings off of him without leaving so much as a dent. He feels like he’s boxed into his own little bubble, like everything that happens blurs by beyond his grip.

He sees Hubert’s eyes slant to the ceiling. 

Ferdinand finally, finally finds the will to speak. “Edelgard, as much as I would cherish your eternal company...oh, nothing. Damn it all. I...I do not believe I can marry you.”

His voice hitches, swinging up about an octave as he cuts off. His eyes never stray from Hubert’s face.

“I am sorry,” Ferdinand blunders on a second later. He watches Edelgard and Hubert exchange glances. Hubert’s eyes flare with disdain; Edelgard’s glow with something else. “V-Very sorry. B-Because everybody put so much hard work into the ceremony--a-and Bernadetta toiled over the dresses--and Petra was even returning from Brigid for the occasion--and we had everything planned out to perfection--and--”

Dorothea lurches forward, draping her arms around his middle and dragging him toward her, smothering him in the warmest hug he’s ever had the fortune to endure. He pulses beneath her, feverish heat buzzing in his face, needles spiking in his eyes like quills. 

“Ferdie, that’s it?” Dorothea asks, and the exhale that follows the question shudders with laughter barely repressed. “All this freaking out over something so insignificant?”

“There is nothing insignificant about it,” Ferdinand rebukes, trying to twist from her embrace. It’s difficult to make a compelling argument when he’s shrouded in the arms of his best friend, plucked from the tumultuous waves of his anxiety by the warmest of rescuers. “Everybody who contributed, a-and I simply bail on them. And I am leaving poor Edelgard stranded, without a husband. This is not fair for--”

“Ferdinand, if you don’t want to marry me...I’m sure I can find another husband at some point. Assuming I want one at all,” Edelgard soothes, even if her voice is a bark, as it always is. Her words hoist the weight from his shoulders, unravel the knots of stress from where they’re clotted in his bloodstream. Air floods his chest again so mercifully, and the clouds in his head are wafted aside.

“You give yourself far too much credit,” Hubert adds, and the sneer on his face saturates his tone, but Ferdinand can’t bring himself to be offended by it. Relief still massages through him with fingers like the breeze. It’s too early after his crisis to start arguments. “The emperor will be fine without you, rest assured. It’s not as though she ever really wanted you.”

“ _ Hubert, _ ” Edelgard scolds him again. Hubert’s reply is just a menacing chuckle that corkscrews through Ferdinand’s very veins, a second bloodstream. 

But he will worry about his feelings for Hubert tomorrow. Today, he will let himself be swaddled in the arms of a friend. He will let the words of two women he truly does hold dear twirl around his distressed mind like bandages around a wounded wrist.

He blusters out another sigh of relief in an attempt to flush the rest of the stress from his being.

“Would you like me to announce the news, milady?” Hubert asks, coursing to the door at a march, milling past Ferdinand with nothing but a final scoff. “The crowd, I must warn you, will not react in kind.”

“Let them react as they will,” Edelgard says. “We can handle them if we must. Go ahead, Hubert. And thank you.”

Hubert bows from the salon. Ferdinand’s busy scrubbing the mask from his face with his knuckles. After all, the powder--and the haven it provides--are no longer necessary.

Right here, right now, this is haven enough.

**Author's Note:**

> And I may do a continuation of this at some point, where that "tomorrow" comes and Ferdie decides to confront his feelings for Hubert. But for today, this is it :)


End file.
